The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-11-04
TEMPERANCE READING.
WHAT A MOTHER GAN DO.
Moral Training In the Home an Element
snf MO-


tWhen can not learn from each
lesson that ! give more than any pupil
in the class, will give up teaching.n
said a successful teacher and author of
text books.
And the faithful mother. in at least
the first half dozen years of her baby 5
life, will learn more lessons than she
teaches the child.
Very likely she has said to herself in
view of some of her husbands peculiar
tiles: ''Oh that might have had part
in your early training"
Perhaps when she sees the same
traits in her boy she repeats the wish.
But as the years go on, and she sees,
not only her own peculiarities in the
child, but also the defects of her char
acter in his training, she NAV say. in
establishment: "Oh that I could be-
gin life again! l might have done
more to improve my mind; 1 might
have trained my body and made it
stronger. | could have corrected and
nodded my unbalanced temperament;
and my children would have been the
better for these self-improvements.
We are not fit to have our children I'M
less we have prepared ourselves for the
trust
But if children are always ours be-
fore we realize the part that our char
acter will play in their destiny, we can
only do our best with the material that
we have. Every child has both good
and evil in his nature, and which we
will draw out depends largely upon
ourselves.
We may not, as it is said, learn a
language easily after we are twenty,
and we may not be what we might
have been morally. But we can train
our children the more faithfully be-
cause of realizing our own shortcom-
ings.
An important part in the mothers
work is the training and educating of
healthy bodies. In rightly developing
the physical nature of her children she
is doing much to develop their moral
nature. "a sound mind is sound
body" is trite saying. Those in
charge of inebriate asylums regard in
temperance as a bodily and mental, as
well as amoral disease, and they think
the matter of diet of great Importance
The regimen laid down is: ''Meat only
once a day, and then beef or mutton
preferable, boiled or roasted, never
fried or highly seasoned, and never
allowed to include pork in any form;
much fruit, vegetables and grains, but
no pastry" In short, nothing that de-
mands unnatural labor of the digestive
organs, or that creates unnatural
thirst.
Though the remark that youth is
| the time for Improvement is COM
mon one, it may be doubted if we re-
alize how much more plastic the mind
is in childhood than later on in life
Early impressions have a security of
hold upon the mind greater than those
| received in mature years. That a
| provincial accent or common errors in
language are seldom eradicatpd after
one has grown to maturity prove this.
That moral training which has for
its end the building up of a sound
moral character in our children will
not only be an element of Temperance
work, but it must of necessity have
| Temperance work as an element If
we have right principles ourselves, it
is easy to teach our children right
| principles of action. But to train
them to act from these principles re-
quires exhaustless patience and will
| power on their part as on our own.
Not until it is easier for them to do
right than it is to do wrong is. our
training successful. Moral attainment,
like intellectual and artistic, is the re-
suit of doing over and over again the
| things that we ought to do. and resist
ing again and again the temptation to
do the things that we ought not to do.
Repeated acts become habits, and
habits form character.
"But," says some disheartened
mother, sit is easy enough to write
what is good to do, but it seems, some
times, as though no other evil has so
many allied powers as that of in
temperance. Often the hard lot or
evil surroundings and companions. of
inherited tendency and parental ex-
ample, of poverty and i'll health, rises
up against one. And, when all these
things are. to be met, even mother
can do little to conquer them"
Indeed she can do much. The in
SEPARATION of real life, filled with that
| heroism which conquers circumstances
to win success, is better than any pa
per upon ethics. But few days ago
we folded for their last rest the hands
of mother, the story of whose deter
mined and successful struggle with adj
verse circumstances would cheer the
| faintest hearted. She was left without
father OF mother at an early age, apd
| when only eighteen she married man
who became Incorporate. The care
and much of the support of family of
ten children developed upon her. So
faithfully did she train these children
that they all grew to be much above
the average citizen in ability and use
fitness. The father ended his life in
an insane asylum, while the old age of
the mother was blest and cheered by
her loving children, ali Of whom sur
vive her, though she died at the age of
eighty-fiye. She abhorred alcohol,
and it was not until the last years of
her life that she could be induced to
take medicine containing it. She set
an unfaltering example in those virtues
that she wished her children to pos
,sess. The poverty of the family early
taught the children to be producers
instead of consumers. The hard work
and plain fare made them strong and
gave them the ability to win their way
in the world.
In connection with this family, one
thing bearing upon the subject of